The invention disclosed herein pertains to a machine for inspecting bottles and for separating from a conveyed stream of bottles those which are not acceptable because they are too short, too tall, contain foreign matter, are chipped, contain lye that is carried over from the washing machine, or that may have an undesired color, for example.
A straight in-line inspection machine for bottles is known from European patent EP 124 164 B1 and corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,680,463. In the known machine, there are first and second linear conveyors comprised of conveyor belts arranged in succession and alignment with each other. At the end of the first straight conveyor belt, there is a collection container into which can fall bottles that are tipped on their sides, glass fragments, and bottles which are too small to be grasped in a second conveyor between two parallel driven belts that are spaced apart sufficiently to grasp bottles having the proper size. In this design, especially when operated at high transport speeds, their is a risk that the undersized bottles will be slung from the end of the first linear conveyor over the collecting container and will fall on the floor of the inspection department, which is obviously undesirable. No provision is made in the known machine for ejecting oversized bottles. If an oversized bottle is present in the bottle stream and gets through the first conveyor, it will arrive on the second conveyor where it can strike and damage various bottle characteristic inspecting devices arranged along the second conveyor.